All films require a certain suspension of disbelief, Fight Club perhaps more than others; but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiralling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club is transformed into a nationwide fascist group. The depiction of violence in Fight Club is unflinching, but director David Fincher's film is captivating and beautifully shot, with camerawork and effects that are almost as startling as the script. The movie is packed with provocative ideas and images--from the satirical look at the emptiness of modern consumerism to quasi-Nietzschean concepts of "beyond good and evil"--that will leave the viewer with much food for thought to take away. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has a great sense of humour too. Even if it leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort this is a movie that you'll have to see again and again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. --Jenny Brown, Amazon.com

Roland Rat Margaret Thatcher; Rubik's Cubes the Royal Wedding; aerobics skinheads... It's 1983 and the schools are breaking up for summer. Shaun is 12 and a bit of a loner growing up with his mum in a grim coastal town his dad was killed fighting in the Falklands War. On his way home from school where he's been tormented all day for wearing flares he runs into a group of skinheads who against expectations turn out to be friendly and take him under their wing. Soon Shaun discovers parties girls and snappy dressing and finds some role models in Woody Milky and the rest of the gang. But when an older overtly racist skinhead returns home from prison the easy camaraderie of the group is broken and Shaun is drawn into much more uncomfortable territory...

Almost obliged to be huge, Gangs of New York marks the return to work of three much-admired creatives missing-in-action for the past few years: director Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. Vast, impressive and challenging, it's unlike anything Scorsese has done in look and manner even as it is exactly the material he has obsessively turned over since his first films. A terrific 1846 prologue depicts a battle for supremacy over a district known as the Five Points between the "native-born American" mob led by William "Butcher" Cutting (Day-Lewis) and an Irish immigrant crew headed by "Priest" Vallon (Liam Neeson). The bloody outcome is the death of Priest and the rise to godfather-like prominence of the literally eagle-eyed Butcher (an eagle-marked marble replaces an eye he fished out in homage to his enemy!). Sixteen years later, Priest's son Amsterdam (DiCaprio) shows up intent on revenge, but finds himself distracted as he is drawn into the Butcher's inner circle much as another Scorsese Irishman hooked up with the mob in Goodfellas. The film covers an array of New York historical topics--from the corrupt government of William "Boss" Tweed to the riots that rocked the community when President Lincoln tried to impose military conscription--while the actual plot wobbles slightly as Amsterdam gets involved with a winsome pickpocket (Cameron Diaz) and wavers in his vengeful resolve. DeCaprio and Diaz aren't quite strong enough characters or players to hold things together--as in a few other recent Scorsese films, heroes are let off easily though they seem guilty of as many appalling crimes as the villains--but they have to compete with an award-worthy study in moustachioed menace and corruption from Day-Lewis and an array of the best supporting actors from either side of the Atlantic (Jim Broadbent, John C Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, David Hemmings). --Kim Newman On the DVD: Gangs of New York comes with a decent set of extras on this two-disc set. Most notable is Martin Scorsese's commentary, the first of its kind on DVD. Taking a concise approach with some moderate pauses, Scorsese avoids a scene-specific analysis, but his rich knowledge both of the historical period and of cinema history is phenomenal, as is the account of his 30-year struggle to get the film made. Documentaries include costume and set design; a tour of the set with Scorsese and production designer Dante Ferretti (with optional 360-degree view); and a well-researched and insightful historical Discovery Channel documentary. "The History of the Five Points" is accompanied by some study notes and a vocab guide, all adding to the rich historical background that this extra material provides. Less insightful and more glossy are the obligatory trailer and "Making of" documentary, complete with husky voiceover. A choice of Dolby or DTS mixes are on offer sound-wise and, as you'd expect from such a beautifully filmed epic, the transfer is superb. --Laura Bushell

Style trumps substance in Man on Fire, a slick, brooding reunion of Crimson Tide star Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott. The ominous, crime-ridden setting is Mexico City, where a dour, alcoholic warrior with a mysterious Black Ops past (Washington) seeks redemption as the devoted bodyguard of a lovable 9-year-old girl (the precociously gifted Dakota Fanning), then responds with predictable fury when she is kidnapped and presumably killed. Prolific screenwriter Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential) sets a solid emotional foundation for Washington's tormented character, and Scott's stylistic excess compensates for a distended plot that's both repellently violent and viscerally absorbing. Among Scott's more distracting techniques is the use of free-roaming, comic-bookish subtitles... even when they're unnecessary! Adapted from a novel by A.J. Quinnell and previously filmed as a 1987 vehicle for Scott Glenn, Man on Fire is roughly on par with Scott's similar 1990 film Revenge, efficiently satisfying Washington's incendiary bloodlust under a heavy blanket of humid, doom-laden atmosphere. --Jeff Shannon

First Rule: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second Rule: You do not talk about Fight Club. Third Rule: When someone says Stop or goes limp the fight is over. Fourth Rule: Only two guys to a fight. Fifth Rule: One fight at a time. Sixth Rule: No shirts no shoes. Seventh Rule: Fights go on as long as they have to. Eighth Rule: If this is your first night at Fight Club you have to fight... Brad Pitt (Seven Snatch) and Edward Norton (American History X Primal Fear) deliver knockout performances in this stunningly original darkly comic film from David Fincher the director of Seven. Norton stars as Jack a chronic insomniac desperate to escape his excruciatingly boring life. That's when he meets Tyler Durden (Pitt) a charismatic soap salesman with a twisted philosophy. Tyler believes self improvement is for the weak - it's self destruction that really makes life worth living. Before long Jack and Tyler are beating each other to a pulp in a bar parking lot a cathartic slugfest that delivers the ultimate high. To introduce other men to the simple joys of physical violence Jack and Tyler form a secret Fight Club that becomes wildly successful. But there's a shocking surprise waiting for Jack that will change everything... Pitt and Norton deliver knockout performances in this stunningly original darkly comic film from David Fincher based on the controversial book by Chuck Palahniuk.

The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called 'Judges' who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users ...

This firm will blow you away... The director and cast of The Football Factory relocate to Spain's Costa Del Crime for this swaggering gangster film a savagely funny tale of suntanned playboys blokey camaraderie and violence that's as casual as the natty 1980s fashion. With an acute eye for the cultural details of the 80s; from clothing to drugs and tacky Spanish clubs boasting a superb soundtrack and a nailbiting climax The Business is a tasty

Forget any off-screen impressions you may have of Mel Gibson, and experience Apocalypto as the mad, bloody runaway train that it is. The story is set in the pre-Columbian Maya population: one village is brutally overrun, its residents either slaughtered or abducted, by a ruling tribe that needs slaves and human sacrifices. We focus on the capable warrior Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), although Gibson skillfully sketches a whole population of characters--many of whom don't survive the early reels. Most of the film is set in the dense jungle, but the middle section, in a grand Mayan city, is a dazzling triumph of design, costuming, and sheer decadent terror. The movie itself is a triumph of brutality, as Gibson lets loose his well-established fascination with bodily mortification in a litany of assaults including impalement, evisceration, snakebite, and bee stings. It's a dark, disgusted vision, but Gibson doesn't forget to apply some very canny moviemaking instincts to the violence--including the creation of a tremendous pair of villains (strikingly played by Raoul Trujillo and Rodolfo Palacias). The film is in a Maya dialect, subtitled in English, and shot on digital video (which occasionally betrays itself in some blurry quick pans). Amidst all the mayhem, nothing in the film is more devastating than a final wordless exchange of looks between captured villager Blunted (Jonathan Brewer) and his wife's mother (Maria Isabel Diaz), a superb change in tone from their early relationship. Yes, this is an obsessive, crazed movie, but Gibson knows what he's doing. --Robert Horton

Quentin Tarantino rocked the film world with this powerful and controversial debut movie. Set mainly in a warehouse in the aftermath of a bungled robbery the story gradually unfolds to introduce the colour-coded gangsters and the planning of the crime step by step through Tarantino's trademark flashbacks. Four have survived after a police ambush - betrayed. What went wrong and who is the betrayer? Brilliantly scripted and complemented by the 70's retro soundtrack the scenes are stylish and violent yet intelligent and full of dark humour. With stunning performances by Harvey Keitel Tim Roth Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen Reservoir Dogs is a tense and exciting examination of male ego on a collision course that results in an unforgettable climax.

Total Recall, director Paul Verhoeven's mega-budget sci-fi action blockbuster from 1990, began its production life as a very different movie. An adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", it was originally conceived of with Richard Dreyfuss starring as a Walter-Mitty-like character who experiences a variety of artificially induced fantasies. But with Arnold Schwarzenegger on board, the final version took a rather different direction. The Austrian Oak plays a normal working man who discovers his entire reality has been invented to conceal a scheme for planetary domination on Mars. Oscar-winning special effects and violent action propel the twisting plot, in which Arnold manipulates his manipulators in a world of dazzling high technology. Verhoeven (Robocop, Starship Troopers) indulges his usual penchant for gratuitous bloodshed, but the movie has enough cleverness to rise above its excesses. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com On the DVD: Not many extras, but excellent picture and sound. The reds of Mars are a terrific way of testing your television's colour definition in this digital transfer. Combine that with testing your speakers in the opening scene to Jerry Goldsmith's pounding score boosted to Dolby 5.1, and what an ideal home cinema demo disc this is! Two trailers show the way a film should and shouldn't be advertised, since the teaser gives nothing away but the main advert tells you everything. A seven-minute behind the scenes featurette with cast interviews and on-set action rounds out the extras package. --Paul Tonks

Sylvester Stallone is back as Rambo! In Thailand a group of Christian aid workers recruit John Rambo to guide them up the Salween River to deliver medical supplies to the Karen tribe of neighboring Burma (aka Myanmar). When the missionaries fail to return Rambo is persuaded to take a group of mercenaries back into the war-torn border region to find them. What follows is a descent into hell on earth.

30 years in the making Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning epic is set in the turbulent Five Points area of New York in the mid nineteenth century. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon out to avenge the death of his father (Liam Neeson) at the hands of Daniel Day-Lewis' fearsome Bill the Butcher. Amsterdam succeeds in integrating himself into Bill's corrupt inner circle which is now running the entire underworld around Five Points and even becomes his right-hand man. However his identity is eventually revealed and a bloody showdown ensues.

Action anti-hero Jason Statham is competing with himself to make the most relentless, non-stop action flick imaginable. In Crank, Statham stars as a hit man named Chev Chelios who's been poisoned by some Chinese toxin; the only way to stave it off is to keep his adrenalin flowing, which requires him to drive at top speeds through crowded traffic, start fights in bars, and run pell-mell down hospital corridors while wearing one of those humiliating smocks that tie in the back. In other words, Crank is high-end pop-trash, filled with many preposterous/ingenious stunts and over-the-top performances (Dwight Yoakam, Sling Blade, is downright droll as a doctor offering Chev assistance), marred by an unpleasant attitude towards women (Amy Smart, Outside Providence, will not look back on this as one of her signature roles). This is a movie for the audience who enjoyed Transporter and Transporter 2 but wanted Statham's perpetual scowl to become a kind of theatrical mask, a perpetual signifier of intensity that begs--nay, demands--that everything around it rise to a mutual level of absurdity. Fans of Luc Besson (Leon/The Professional, District 13) will find Crank to be simpatico. --Bret Fetzer

Hidden in the shadows of the Colosseum, the SUBURRA district was the criminal underbelly of Ancient Rome, home to the city s darkest secrets. In modern times, crime and corruption has spread deep inside the city where everything - even the priesthood - can be bought for a price. From acclaimed director Stefano Sollima (Gomorrah, Romanzo Criminale and the forthcoming Sicario sequel, Soldado) and based on the novel co-written by Carlo Bonini & Giancarlo De Cataldo, SUBURRA takes place over seven days leading up to an Apocalypse as a former crime boss, known as Samurai , is instructed by corrupt Mafia families to use his influence to help turn the waterfront of Rome into a new Las Vegas. Elsewhere, after a night of excess leads to a young girl s death, politician Filippo Malgradi (Pierfrancesco Favino) becomes pivotal in a chain of events which see him drawn into a web woven by Samurai. As the countdown to the Apocalypse draws to a close, secrets are quickly unravelled as increasingly powerful gangsters become caught in the crossfire. As the city begins to crumble, all those involved must choose to sink or swim by betraying those closest to them. Featuring a soaring score by French electronic group M83, SUBURRA also stars Elio Germano (Best Actor at Cannes Film Festival for La Nostra Vita), Greta Scarano (Senza Nessuna PietÃ ), Alessandro Borghi (Don t Be Bad, Romanzo Criminale) and Claudio Amendola (La Scorta, Queen Margot). Following the film s huge domestic success, Netflix has commissioned a 10-part SUBURRA series the very first Netflix original series from Italy set to debut on the streaming service in 2017.

In the newest 3D action-adventure from the director of My Bloody Valentine Drive Angry stars Nicolas Cage as Milton a hardened felon who has broken out of hell for one last chance at redemption. Intent on stopping a vicious cult who murdered his daughter he has three days to stop them before they sacrifice her baby beneath a full moon. He's joined by Piper (Amber Heard) - a young sexy waitress who liberates her ex-boyfriend's cherry-red muscle car in order to help Milton. Now the two of them are hot on the trail of the deadly leader of the cult Jonah King (Billy Burke) who believes it is his destiny to use the baby to unleash hell on earth. But the bloodthirsty cult is the least of Milton's problems. The police are after him too. And worse an enigmatic killer known only as The Accountant - who has been sent by the Devil to retrieve Milton and deliver him back to hell. With wicked cunning and hypnotic savagery the Accountant will relentlessly pursue Milton at high speed across the country until his mission is accomplished. Fueled by high octane and pure rage Milton must use his anger to go beyond all human limits to avenge his daughter's murder before his last chance at redemption is revoked.

Proudly billed as "the fourth film by Quentin Tarantino", Kill Bill, Volume 1 is actually half of it (if you include his chunk of Four Rooms it's really the fourth and a quarterth). If Jackie Brown achieved a certain maturity beyond callous cool, then this is his Mr Hyde's trash picture, which relishes all the things in cinema that are supposed to be bad for you. The opening Shaw Brothers logo and cheesy "our feature presentation" card, redolent of rancid Kia-Ora and stale Wrestlers, sets this up as defiantly a movie-geek's movie, whose touchstones are spaghetti Westerns, comic books, kung fu/samurai quickies and second-hand vinyl albums. If Kill Bill was a dog-eared paperback, it'd be confiscated by a teacher. Tarantino's favoured flashback-and-forth structure means we begin with a shuffle between past and present as the Bride with No Name (Uma Thurman) is shown being apparently murdered at the climax of a Texas wedding chapel massacre and alive again tracking down the second person on her to-kill list. The bulk of the film takes place between these plot points as the Bride carries a vengeance feud to the first of her enemies, yakuza queenpin O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). Like its soundtrack--everything from Nancy Sinatra to the RZA, with the Green Hornet theme along the way--it's an eclectic picture, with sequences done as a gruesome anime, particularly genocidal stretches in black and white, and segues from cheerful kung fu massacre to Kurosawa-look poised duelling. Tarantino holds back on his trademark motormouth pop culture references; in fact, much of the film is in sub-titled Japanese. You have to lock your brain into trash-film mode to get the most out of it, but its cliffhanger fade-out--unlike the dispiriting "to be continued" at the end of Matrix Reloaded--makes you want to come back. It's not a spoiler to reveal that Bill (a barely glimpsed David Carradine) hasn't been killed yet, and Thurman needs to take out Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen before she gets to him. --Kim Newman

Based on the true life best seller 'Wiseguy' by Nicholas Pileggi and backed by a dynamic pop/rock oldies soundtrack was named 1990's best film by the New York Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics. And it earned six Academy Award Nominations. Robert De Niro received wide recognition for his performance as veteran criminal Jimmy The Gent Conway. And as the volatile Tommy DeVito Joe Pesci walked off with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar Academy Award nominee Lorraine Bracco Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino also turned in electrifying performances. You have to see it to believe it.

Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, the Japanese actor-director best known in the US for his quirky, ulraviolent gangster movies (Fireworks, Brother, Sonatine) and in the UK (among satellite and cable viewers, at least) for the bizarre It's a Knockout-meets-Endurance gameshow Takeshi's Castle, applies his off-kilter sensibility to the samurai genre in The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. A blind masseur (Kitano with his hair dyed white) wanders into a small town divided up by rival gangs. Though hunched and shuffling, Zatoichi soon reveals his deadly skills as a swordsman. He befriends a pair of geisha girls with secrets of their own and helps them hunt down the bandits who killed their parents. But one of the gangs has just hired a ronin, a masterless samurai, whose fighting skill may equal the blind swordsman's. Zatoichi mixes a melodramatic storyline, deadpan comedy, and dazzling, CGI-enhanced swordfights into a supremely entertaining package. In Japan, Zatoichi is a recurring character in popular action movies, but Kitano places his own unique stamp on the series. --Bret Fetzer

Everybody's favourite graphic novel comes to the screen (after years of rumours and false starts), less a roaring work of adaptation than a respectful and faithful take on a radical original. Watchmen is set in the mid-1980s, a time of increased nuclear tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, as Richard Nixon is enjoying his fifth term as president and the world's superheroes have been forcibly retired. (As you can probably tell, the mix of authentic history and alternate reality is heady.) Things begin with a bang: the mysterious high-rise murder of the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a masked hero with a checkered past, puts the rest of the retired superhero community on alert. The credits sequence, a series of tableaux that wittily catches us up on crime-fighting backstory, actually turns out to be the high point of the movie. Thereafter we meet the other caped and hooded avengers: the furious Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the inexplicably naked Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, amidst much blue-skinned, genital-swinging digital work), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). The corkscrewing storytelling, which worked well in the comic book, gives the movie the strange sense of never quite getting in gear, even as some of the episodes are arresting. Director Zack Snyder (300) doesn't try to approximate the electric impact of the original (written by Alan Moore--who declined to be credited on the movie--and illustrated by Dave Gibbons) but retains careful fidelity to his source material. That doesn't feel right, even with the generally enjoyable roll-out of anecdotes. Even less forgivable is the blah acting, excepting Jeffrey Dean Morgan (lusty) and Patrick Wilson (mellow). Watchmen certainly fills the eyes, although less so the ears: the song choices are regrettable, especially during an embarrassing mid-air coupling between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II as they unite their--ah--Roman numerals. In the end it feels as though a huge work of transcription has been successfully completed, which isn't the same as making a full-blooded movie experience. --Robert Horton